We love the versatility of this cake: Make it a trendy naked cake and have extra icing for creating cake pops (see tip below), or go to town and generously cover each layer with fudgy maple icing.
- Prep time 1 hour
- Total time 2 hours
- Portion size 16 servings
- Credits : Canadian Living Magazine
Ingredients
Cake:
Icing:
Assembly:
Method
Cake: Grease three 8-inch (1.2 L) round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light, about 5 minutes; beat in eggs, 1 at a time, scraping bowl between each addition. Beat in maple extract. In separate bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and maple syrup. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, making 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of buttermilk mixture until smooth. Divide batter among prepared pans; smooth tops.
Bake in centre of 350°F oven until cake tester inserted in centres comes out clean, 28 to 30 minutes. Let cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes. Invert onto racks; peel off parchment paper. Let cool completely. (Make-ahead: Wrap layers separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 day or overwrap with heavy-duty foil and freeze for up to 2 weeks.)
Icing: In large bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in sugar, maple syrup, maple extract and salt. Slowly beat in icing sugar. Beat until pale and fluffy, 5 to 6 minutes.
Assembly: In small bowl, whisk jam to loosen.
Using serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level. Reserve cake trimmings for cake pops (see tip, below). Brush remaining maple syrup over cut side of each cake. Place 1 layer, cut side up, on cake plate. Slide strips of waxed paper between cake and plate. Spread cut side with about 1/4 cup of the icing; spread 1/2 cup of the jam in circular motion over icing. Gently smooth, but don't spread to edge. Cover with second cake layer, cut side down. Spread 3/4 cup of the icing over top. Drizzle with remaining jam; gently spread. Cover with final cake layer, cut side down. Refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.
Using offset palette knife, spread remaining icing all over cake, filling in holes between layers as needed. Smooth side and top. To get the naked look, scrape frosting from side until the cake is revealed. Discard waxed paper.
Top cake with strawberries. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Cake Pops
Tip From the Test Kitchen: Use the remaining icing and cake trimmings to make cake pops! In bowl, mix cake scraps with icing until combined. Using a small ice cream scoop, form into balls; roll to smoothen. Dip ends of pop sticks in melted white chocolate; poke in middle of each cake ball. Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes. Dip each cake pop in melted white chocolate. Garnish with colourful sprinkles.
Nutritional facts Per serving: about
- Fibre 2 g
- Sodium 419 mg
- Sugars 79 g
- Protein 7 g
- Calories 745
- Total fat 28 g
- Potassium 303 mg
- Cholesterol 104 mg
- Saturated fat 17 g
- Total carbohydrate 117 g
%RDI
- Iron 22
- Folate 31
- Calcium 12
- Vitamin A 25
- Vitamin C 23
